edit: This DID wind up being a rather long reply, apologies. I highly advise anybody replying make use of the "quote" "/quote" (with [ ] brackets instead of ") to make things easier!
We had a topic about the Anaconda a few months ago and actually came up with a possible solution (but will result in more power creep).
Namely, add an Engineer which can modify Hull Mass. THEN give ALL current Anacondas a built-in G5 Lightweight mod.
Engineers was a mistake. They shouldn't be this catch-all bandaid to problems that haven't actually been resolved. It'd just be heading deeper down the rabbit hole that Engineers is.
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I could not disagree more with your assessment of the lack of variation in cars. Of course, the most common cars you see on the road definitely look similar, but that would be like staying in Erivate and complaining that the only ships people fly are sidewinders.
It'd be more like sitting in a station and seeing 20+ variations of the Sidewinder, all supposedly from different years and makers, that all still look so similar that they might as well just be the same exact ship.
Whether or not it’s a good comparison, I still think perfectly balanced ships without weird quirks and gimmicks would end up being really boring. That said, I will say the Python seems a bit too perfect (as a Python pilot I would be mortified if they nerfed it though) and the AspScout seems a bit too worthless.
I guess I really don’t see the purpose for this either... unless it’s just to quell some CMDRs’ OCD. Out of all the things FDev could fix, it seems like this one would have the lowest possible positive impact while having the highest possible negative impact. Imagine floating around Beagle Point and realizing that suddenly with a recent update your Anaconda now has a base mass of 1200T. Even if you aren’t out in the middle of nowhere, CMDRs have spent hundreds of hours optimizing their ships based on the quirks that the ships are designed with. A blanket rebalance would be basically a restart for everyone.
Personally, as Sylveria said, if I were out at Beagle Point with an Anaconda at the time of such a change, I'd embrace and live with it.
CMDRs have been making it to beagle point since before Engineers, remember? Including with Type-9s. It's more than possible to reach such locations (let alone 99.99% of the galaxy) without any Engineering.
Nobody with an Anaconda is going to have any real problems, except for an extreme few who intentionally seek out star systems out on the very fringe (so maybe 1% of 1% of 1% of explorers out there), and support can quite easily help such CMDRs out.
It would not be a big problem in the end at all. I guarantee, if it were to happen, the biggest complaint would be about how it takes longer to jump across the galaxy again, and even that argument would be invalid in the face of the Diamondback/Asp Explorer.
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Take the Challenger. Look at the rear outboard landing gear. It seems to take up all the space of its housing and yet there is an engine in that same housing!
And yet there are thngs called 'thrusters' that have their own single module / housing. Then again we target the 'main drive'! Where's the module for that?
Can we target the rear landing gear? Which would also mean targeting the engine if considering the Challenger.
Sorta off-topic, but that's a myth. People have since taken video/screenshots of the Challenger landing gear, it folds and retracts into quite a small space underneath the rest of the engine pod. You can observe it for yourself. Sure, it's still kind of an odd design choice, but fact is Fdev *did* pay attention to these details when making the ship.
Just wish they had that same eye for consistent detail where balancing numbers is concerned.
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I don't know, that's a pretty good one. I'm all for a proper balance, but dismissing offhand that those going to the edges of the galaxy "knew very well what they were getting into" smacks of ignorance and, acting like a bit of an entitled brat.
Even with 70+LY jump rage, Beagle point is a bit of a mission, it'll take a lot of time to get there, and, let me tell you, having been there twice, having my ship specs changed out on the rim of the galaxy, with my only "out" being the rebuy screen, with all my exploration data lost to boot... That is NOT what any explorer signs up for.
Z...
You'll never encounter such a situation. Even if you're the 1% of the 1% of the 1% that goes to the very outer rim systems in the galaxy (which are *much* further out than Beagle Point is, since Beagle Point was reached by non-engineered ships like the Type 9), support *will* help you out.
I really wish that intentionally blowing oneself up wasn't treated by so many players as this short-cut to teleport across the galaxy, that kind of thing ruins so many people's perspectives...not that I have a good alternative in mind as of right now.
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Balance is a lie unless ALL you have is combat, and even there, some one design almost always comes out as better in the mechanics of the game.
Elite isn't JUST a shooter, meaning that you cannot balance the game because exploration, racing and trading are not equivalent to combat.
Not true, balance is not something that applies to only combat - far from it. It's true that most games just don't prioritize it though.
As to the munchkins, they only care about being at the top of the heap at whatever cost to anyone else's enjoyment. They are always going to optimax, and trying to prevent it just shifts what is "best".
Okay, you can stop this antagonistic attitude right now. Players seeking to do their best at a game is not a bad thing, and it's only to be expected. Trying to shame, namecall, and divisely look down on people for doing their best is wrong.
The fault for "optimaxing" being a thing lies with the designer of the game that creates that situation, not with the players for playing the game for what it is.
A balancing pass is just reiterating the existing problem with different variables. The current ship methodology is horribly broken because it forces artificial physics into the game in the name of uniqueness, makes artificial limitations on equipment by placing size limits on core modules that have nothing to do with the volume available in the hull, and doesn't allow you to repurpose otherwise unused space by using Internal Compartments of a static size and dedicating space to specifically typed equipment through class limited compartments and utility mounts.
The only way it'd be reiterating the existing problem is if it's done willy-nilly without establishing some sort of formula to follow, something that takes all the necessary variables and accounts for them accordingly. 'Uniqueness' will occur naturally, because all those variables can then be tweaked to one's liking. 'Physics' only matters insofar as consistency, and has little to do with 'uniqueness'. As for your perspective on internal space, sure, that can be improved too. I myself don't feel like size vs mass of modules is consistent or even believable much at all, there's no reason that can't be improved.
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You really seem to have an axe to grind here. I gave you the benefit of the doubt until Page 2, but by then it became quite clear that your axe isn't named Balance, it's named Anaconda. I was genuinely hoping to be wrong on that, to be honest. You can keep trying to obscure that if you like, but it doesn't fool me.
The bottom line here, is that there aren't any actual good reasons for the kind of balance pass that you seem to want, and a great many good reasons not to.
That's being more than a little disingenuous....
Blizzard has never been able to get this right, and neither would Frontier.
Okay, full stop. Blizzard hasn't ever TRIED to get this right.
Blizzard knows what they do best: making games look and feel pretty while telling a good story or two. They are *wizards* of their craft when it comes to that, they are VERY good at it; their creative departments are top-notch.
However, as can be observed with any of their games, they take a very laissez faire approach to balance. "If it feels cool and looks cool then it is cool" is about as far as they take tinkering with design and numbers. Sure, they pay lip service and show some attention to tweaking things around, but there's no formulaic approach to it and not even *close* to being done with any kind of scientific method.
There's every opportunity for Frontier to be different and prove themselves superior to Blizzard in this department.
Frontier =/= Blizzard. Just because 1 company doesn't get it right doesn't mean any other company can't.
The Anaconda's jump range (or Mass, if you prefer) hurts nothing in this game, Sylveria. Nothing that actually matters, anyway, and your personal axe doesn't qualify as something that matters to anyone other than you.
I and many others besides Sylveria disagree directly about the Anaconda, and I in particular disagree with saying "nothing that matters" or that it's a 'personal axe to grind'. That's not a very compelling argument, you know?
<snip>If you are power-Mining, the Anaconda is a good choice, but there are better choices for that.
The only reason to go any bigger than Anaconda is if you want more cargo space and thus to stay out for longer; having the most optional internal slots still makes it the most ideal for a task that requires lots of different optional internal slots.
I could keep going, but I guess when you consider the above facts (as opposed to opinion),
It'd be fairer to call them fact-based opinions, but continue....
then it's really hard to get behind any notion that the Anaconda needs balancing. She is the Queen of one thing, and one thing only, and is otherwise not OP by any stretch of the word in any other activity in the game.
Who said the Anaconda was OP?
She is a solid ship choice for anything that you might want to do in the game, and she is available to all Commanders, regardless of how hard-core or casual they may be. Put another way, she represents something really nice for our most casual friends, and she should stay that way.
That's the point. It is
a good choice for most things, there's not many compelling reasons to use a different ship. The mass thing is what takes it just a little too far.
I also noticed that you have a problem seeing that the kind of balance that you want does lead to homogenization.
Uh, doesn't this fly in the face of what you just said about the Anaconda being a 'solid ship choice for anything'? If you don't want homogenization, then you've got everything to gain by a balance update that applies consistent rules to *all* ships. Note that nothing about such a pass means giving all ships the same values, Fdev can tweak any and all variables to their liking to achieve the desired design vision they have for each of their ships. But they *ought* to be consistent and sensible about it.
Repeating what I said earlier in this post again, making things that are actually different causes outliers on both ends. This is not avoidable. Period.
All a proposed balance pass does is move the goalposts - it does not remove them.
Only if you take the Blizzard approach to balancing things, that is, just doing it by "feel" and not doing the numbercrunching work, which is admittedly a time-consuming task without an established consistent base.
Guess what - Blizzard is not perfect nor The Almighty. They are not even all that great, in my eyes, though I've enjoyed their single-player/PvE experiences quite a bit. I think you're placing way too much stock in their success and aren't looking at the whole picture there, there's a whole lotta flaws going on where Blizzard is concerned.
Not that you're alone, I think there's way too many game developers around the gaming world as a whole that look at other successful developers and, rather than do their own thing and seek to do the best they can at a given ideal, just copy what's already been done and take the same approaches. It's a real darn shame, if you ask me.
Right now, as the game stands, there are multiple viable choices for any and every activity that you might want to do. They are different in look, feel, character, and performance, but still viable. This is an excellent place to be, and I have trouble processing how people can't get past their own OCD to see that things are actually in a very good place. Some tweaks to some individual ships over time (like has been done already) certainly, but there is absolutely no need for a Fleet-wide overhaul.
It's not about OCD, there's that disingenuity again.
The game is pretty good as-is, that is true. But it can be better and there's no reason to try obstructing it being improved upon.
One of DE's biggest mistakes with Warframe, and one of the most common complaints I see from its players, is that they don't improve upon what they've built so far - they keep moving on and piling on more quantity instead of working on the quality. To an extent, it's worked, but it's also starting to snowball with how many glaring flaws, inconsistencies, and jarring disjointedness there really is with the game.
Just like in Elite, their "PvP" mode is a joke that goes ignored by at least 99% of the community. And just like in Elite, any semblance of balance is made an even worse joke because of their modding system - Engineers is pretty bad, but boy
howdy is Warframe's modding system hundreds of times worse.
I guarantee, if DE did not take their innovative approach to being an independent F2P game with freely tradeable 'premium' currency, there's no chance Warframe would enjoy its current popularity, because the quality is just not there.
And I'm personally quite scared that Fdev's already been trapping themselves with the same mindset.
